On Friday, August 1, some 75 minutes after the onset of a ceasefire, a three-person IDF squad advanced toward a suspicious location along the outskirts of the city of Rafah. The squad apparently did not ask for the standard fire support to accompany it, Haaretz reported, because a 72-hour truce was already in place. Instead it advanced on foot, surreptitiously.

Hamas operatives were waiting in ambush. Two soldiers, Major Benaya Sarel and Staff Sergeant Liel Gidoni, were killed, and a third, Lt. Hadar Goldin, was abducted.

Other members of their unit, Sayeret Givati, moved under fire to the fallen soldiers but did not at first realize that one of the three bodies was a fallen Hamas man, perhaps in IDF uniform, according to the Haaretz report. When it became clear that Goldin was missing, though, the officers in the field did not have to unfurl a long explanation over the army radio frequency. All they needed to do was utter a single word: Hannibal.